It's Understood
by Esper Kay
Summary: The only thing Matt likes about the city are those rare early mornings where he can go smoke on the rusty fire escape of their apartment and halfway hear himself think.  Matt-centric, onesided MattMello, oneshot.


Title: It's Understood

Author: parkingLOTinTHEidiot a.k.a. jackedUPonDRpepper

Word Count: 1,250 words

Rating: T, for minor swearing

Pairing: Unrequited Matt/Mello

Author's Notes: I wrote this at the beginning of the year, when I was going through a personal crisis and trying to figure out some things about myself. This was my way of getting it out. We don't know all that much about Matt (sadly), so it leaves us to wonder what led him to help Mello. And wonder we do...

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The only thing Matt likes about the city (a drastic change from the English countryside he's known for all of his natural life-all green and calm and altogether less likely to have a driveby every third night) are those rare early mornings when he's the first to wake up and can go smoke on the rusty fire escape of their shitty apartment and halfway hear himself think.

The city isn't quiet, exactly (the day the words "city" and "quiet" are synonymous is the day Kira is his mother), but the litter-filled streets are mostly empty, save for the occasional homeless man or passing taxi, and the middle class people are all sleeping in their beds like sane folks should be; if he squints he can see the slightest sliver of red sunrise coming over the skyscrapers in the distance, and if he leans further to his right he could maybe catch the sight of it reflected over the harbor. If he were more of an optimist he'd say it was a sight worthy of inspiring anyone to seize the day. Unfortunately, Matt has never identified himself as an optimist.

He registers the cold-it's the second week of January, after all-but all his attention is registered on the curlicues of smoke his cigarette is emitting, drifting away to mix into the polluted urban air (hey, he's just doing his share, here). There's an undercurrent of something, _something_, on the breeze that he thinks he might be susceptible to, something inbetween anxiety and excitement, but it's like that name on the tip of your tongue that's been drowned into obscurity by overlapping memory and a touch of booze.

He'd go in and ask-what exactly was the blond to him again? Ex-best friend? Boss? S_tupid prick that waltzes back into his life and tries to go and kill himself and then steals the only bed and kicks him to the couch_-Mello, but he's been off lately (more so than usual, if that's possible), and he'd rather not bleed into his breakfast cereal again for asking "irrelevant questions that are a fucking waste of time". The taste of processed sugar and milk and iron just don't mix very well.

It's best to let Mello sleep. He'd been up late again the night before, burning the midnight oil and pounding at the keys of his shoplifted laptop like some kind of piano virtuoso, looking for an answer in that one stream of obscure data, that one hacked surveillance feed. Muttering obscenities to himself, depleting his chocolate supply (memo: go on another supermarket run today), letting the rings under his eyes slowly deepen as another (but indirect) tribute to L as he pops whatever pill's closest and refuses to blink.

He's killing himself, Matt knows-gradually now, but any given day he could run off and really (most terrifying of all, _purposefully_) do himself in.

He can't say anything to him-you can't argue with those eyes, for one thing. Ice fixed to his face, grey-blue and so cold, and set with a crazy, desperate gleam. He tried to reason with him once ("You're going to get yourself killed, Mello; this is real life, not another competition!"), early on, but Mello had ignored him for days afterwards and he'd walked on eggshells, terrified of the possibility that he'd wake up one morning and Mello would be gone _again_.

And frankly, if that happens, Matt doesn't know what he'd do. He doesn't want to think about it, so when Mello's crazy streak pops up (now with alarming frequency), he turns on a game system and plays until the screen blurs, until the possibility is placed properly back in an abandoned broom closet in his mind.

It's much easier to deal with the real world if it consists of beating a clock or a boss, where nothing matters but collecting coins and saving a princess, and lives can be retrieved with the push of a **RESTART **button.

But then again, this real world isn't like his video games. The clocks are the numbers above everyone's heads; the boss is a kid in the NPA; coins are precious few (and certainly not gold), and this princess he's trying to save doesn't even realize he needs saving...

It's every inch a horrible comparison. Matt doesn't want to live his life in terms of his latest RPG, but he's every bit the ill-fated protagonist. Dreary back story (orphan, remember?), anti-social grey-area personality, his reason for being part of this resistance questionable...

Quite simply, he had to go and be a complete and utter _fool_. He's just another one of those stupid kids who had to go and fall in love with his best friend. Except it's not that cliché high school boy-girl happily-ever-after firework kisses and riding off into the sunset crap; it's the slightly less clich _Mello's always had my back_ and _his damn fine girly-but-still-capable-of-kicking-your-ass features_ and their reunion after five years and _maybe, deep, deep down he is still the little Mihael this Mail Jeevas used to know_ and what could have happened between them if he was anyone else.

But if Mello were anyone else Matt wouldn't love him now, would he?

It's a silent struggle, this (for lack of any other word) _infatuation;_ he can try to trace it back to the Wammy days and see it's been steadily increasing over the years-to the point now he's sure the confession is about to leap off of his dry tongue whenever they are in the same room. It wasn't a sudden epiphany, almost a feeling that had always been there and one day he had put a name to it. It wasn't a realization he'd accepted smoothly-far from it-but after the swirl of self-doubting thoughts had cleared, it had just been _right_. At least to him.

Sometimes he lays awake at night on his shitty couch and strains his ears, listening for the reassuring wheezy inhale and exhale from Mello in the other room. It makes him think of nights when they shared a room, when he could actually see him sleeping-could actually see _him_ without the goggles and the lies and the scars. He could see a peaceful Mihael Keehl deep in slumber, golden-hair caught in the moonlight, and realize that no matter what changed he could never give up this feeling or transfer it to someone else.

He'd never imagined...

Things have changed-he's a gangly nerd who never hit that last growth spurt and questionable fashion sense smoking over a grimy alley and Mello's a whoreish ex-Mafia member with half a face. But when he looks at him-

Looks at Mello. Mihael. It doesn't matter. Because sometimes he can still see why exactly he can't let go of him. Why he didn't give up after all those years. Why he can (why he _will probably_) die for him.

Why he won't ever tell him why he feels like this because he's afraid of what will happen next.

The morning sun truly breaks over the horizon, but he's already gone and this cigarette is smoldering in the gutter.

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